Theme for the gathering

The four archetypes: The King, Warrior, Lover, and Magician are the road maps to healthy, mature masculinity. This spring the theme of the Connecticut men’s gathering is focusing on the Magician Archetype.

"The Magician" Archetype​Spring 2019

Sacred space * Initiation * Transformation

The archetypes are universal patterns or positions of power and being that emanate from the body, psyche and spirit. The Magician also known as Magus, Shaman, Healer, Sorcerer, Conjurer is the keeper of hidden knowledge gained through perception and experience. The Magician is the seer, the bridge from this world to realms that lay beyond our immediate everyday experiences, the eternal student who through leaning into the mysteries of life draws forth vision and knowledge making it accessible to adepts and the society at large. The Magician is the doorway to the attainment of higher states of consciousness and deeper thresholds of experience.

"There's an old romantic idea.... which says that the ideas and poetry of the traditional cultures come out of the folk. They do not. They come out of an elite experience, the experience of people particularly gifted, whose ears are open to the song of the universe." - Joseph Campbell ​In Greek mythology this energy is represented in Hecate, the goddess of sorcery, who guides Persephone along dark pathways to her appointed place in the underworld. It is the Magician who informs the reality that the other archetypes exist within. How does the Warrior distinguish between what needs protection from what is threat? Who guides the King toward the ordering and governing of the realm?

Mystery and knowledge are the two aspects that must be balanced for the constructive, mature side of the Magician to be present. Perception, awareness, understanding, discrimination, and insight are the cognitive faculties that lead to the Magician's knowing. In the most mundane or physical reading of this archetype we find one who carries and teaches information gained through experience, a master of technology and learning. However, it is through the Magician's relationship to the mysterious and the mystical that the numinosity or power of the archetype comes into full expression. This is "the magic" of the Magician: transformation through sacred space and initiation. This journey of transformation through mystery and sacred space is a facing toward the unknown that requires receptivity, surrender, and humility. This is the source of spontaneity and intuition. This is the contribution that the Magician makes to creativity. While creativity is mostly in the domain of the Lover, the one continually at play, reveling in the beauty of the world, it is the intuitive nature of the Magician which allows the experience of improvisation. It is imagination which allows what has never been to emerge in the world. Art is the conversation between the Lover and the Magician.

"The painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through" - Jackson Polluck.

The Dark Magician

The archetypes will always have constructive and destructive manifestations. The destructive or negative manifestation of the archetype is referred to as the shadow because it is repressed in the unconscious and is acted out in hidden and unseen ways. When this archetype is inflated you find arrogance, self righteousness, deception, and self-delusion. The dark Magician manipulates the perception of others, purposefully mystifying rather than guiding and initiating, monopolizing information for the purpose of maintaining intellectual and esoteric dominance. We see this play out in the sociopolitical sphere as censorship, propaganda, and divisive tactics such as class warfare. When this energy is acted out inwardly it can manifest as blending in with the crowd, being a shape shifter or wallflower, adapting and loosing oneself through becoming what others want to see. It can also manifest as a distorted belief about one's relation to the world, such as a messiah complex or belief that one is a savior, special, or above others. Another aspect of the dark Magician is to be wordy and verbose, needing to be the one talking, needing to be the one who is the informer or educator. ​